Deceptions
by TheChimeraSculptress
Summary: Set after The Reichenbach Fall. Mycroft has just returned from Sherlock's funeral to find Sherlock in his living room. All the regulars will eventually turn up - John, of course, and Mrs Hudson, Molly Hooper and Lestrade. Reviews appreciated, thanks!
1. Chapter 1

"How was he?"

Sherlock stood tensely in front of the quietly crackling fireplace. Though he had his back turned to his brother, his eyes quickly sought him out through the pristine glass of the gold framed mirror mere inches from his face. His hands were the only betrayer of his self-possessed front, pressed painfully into the mantlepiece as if it were his only means of support

"What do you think?"

Dressed in an immaculate black mourning suit Mycroft hooked his umbrella onto a stand beside the door and made for one of the plushly upholstered chairs that flanked Sherlock like a couple of bodyguards. He sighed as he sank down into the rich scarlet material, running a hand through his thinning hair. "Quite a loyal turn out despite the stories continuing to circulate the tabloids. Molly put on a good show, I must say. One would never guess the part she really played." Mycroft raised an eyebrow, suddenly looking thoughtful. "Then again, perhaps the tears were real."

"She's an emotional girl."

"But strong where it counts. By faking your death she saved your life."

"Yes. Yes, she did."

And Sherlock would never forget it. He owed more than _his_ life to Molly Hooper.

There was a long drawn out silence, only punctuated by the heavy ticking of the elegant Victorian grandfather clock that dominated the room.

"So," Mycroft started, staring up at Sherlock's lean frame in frustration. "What now?"

"I don't know."

Mycroft blinked in surprise. "That's a first for you, brother dear. No more tricks up your sleeve? I'm all astonishment."

Sherlock turned at last, his sharply angled face set tight as his eyes flared with restrained anger. "I need time. Time to think." His gaze absently flicked across to the grandfather clock. His mind was such a chaotic maelstrom of activity that he found the slow rhythmic ticking unexpectedly reassuring. It served to remind him that life ticked on. That he wasn't dead. That he had beaten Moriarty at his sick twisted game.

"Well, you've certainly got plenty of that on your hands. No more cases for you. Lestrade will have to use his own brainpower for once."

"Lestrade is the least of my worries."

"Which brings us back to the crux of the matter."

Sherlock took a deep breath and walked over to the second armchair. He faltered a moment, conscious of Mycroft's stare boring into him, before sitting down, his hands desperately grasping the chair sides much like they had the mantle-piece.

"Do not fret. He will cope. John is a survivor. One of her majesty's finest."

Sherlock rolled his eyes with disdain. "Queen and country," he mumbled beneath his breath. "All you've ever cared about."

Mycroft frowned but refused to take the bait. "Unless you intend to retreat to the other side of the world and live out the rest of your days as a Mongolian goat farmer, you won't be able to fool the world forever, you know. You are taking a risk even being here." He shot Sherlock a puzzled look. "Where have you been this past week anyway?"

Sherlock fleetingly averted his gaze, appearing mildly uncomfortable. "Molly's flat."

Mycroft smirked.

"There wasn't the time to plan an alternative domicile," Sherlock threw back defensively. "And it seemed the least likely place anyone would suspect."

"Why should anyone suspect? Your battered and bloodied corpse has been front page news all over the world." Mycroft smiled smugly. "Thanks to the same _cyclist_ who stalled John long enough for you to orchestrate your elaborate deception." He leaned forward slightly, his face darkening. "The _Queen and Country _you seem to abhor so much."

Sherlock met his brother's eyes. Both sets narrowed stubbornly before finally relaxing in defeat. In truth, neither possessed the energy for a pointless skirmish.

"The photo was a good move," Sherlock said at length. He managed a twitch of an appreciative smile. "Thanks."

His brother feigned amusement. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it."

Sherlock dragged his fingers through his hair and wearily dropped his head back against the chair. He stared vacantly up at the gilded ceiling, as opulent and ostentatious as the rest of Mycroft's grand house. "I'm sorry, John," he whispered beneath his breath, his chest tightening in response. He knew that this was all for the greater good, that he had saved John's life by faking his death, but he couldn't shake off the guilt, the belief that he was somehow letting him down with this cruel deception.

If Mycroft heard his words he didn't let on. "How did you get from Molly's to here without being recognised?"

"Disguise."

"A good one, I hope."

Sherlock continued to stare at the ceiling. "I don't do anything by halves."

"No, you don't," Mycroft conceded.

When Mycroft's mobile suddenly rang, Sherlock was grateful for the interruption. He may have offered a white flag but he wasn't in the mood for his brother's lecturing.

Mycroft swiftly retrieved the phone from his suit pocket and answered it. "Mycroft?"

Sherlock watched him with half an interest, still thinking about John. Even Lestrade and Mrs Hudson were in his thoughts. He rubbed edgily at his temple, unaccustomed to dealing with these sorts of emotions. As a rule he preferred to give emotions a wide birth. John joked that he was like a Vulcan, but it made life a lot easier and a hell of a lot more productive. He hadn't lied when he had said that he was married to his work. There was no room for anything else.

At least…there hadn't been.

But now?

His career was finished and wretched _emotions_ were running rampant through his usually restrained and rational chain of thought like a virus, corrupting the flawless _hard-drive _he had spent decades refining.

"And you are _quite_ serious about this?"

Sherlock noticed that his brother had gone a little pale all of a sudden. He found himself tensing again as his brother ended the call and returned his mobile to his pocket.

"What is it? Not John?"

Mycroft slowly shook his head. "No, not John."

Relief flooded through Sherlock, though he still waited anxiously for his brother to continue. He could tell by the man's demeanour that something had happened, something bad.

"Moriarty," Mycroft whispered sinisterly.

Sherlock felt a shiver run the length of his spine. The blood coursing through his veins seemed to have turned to ice. The rooftop confrontation ricocheted through his mind. Moriarty's crazed eyes as he had rammed his gun half way down his throat and pulled the trigger. "What about him?"

"His body."

Sherlock could see his nemesis lying there, framed by a widening pool of deep red blood, that despicable face supercilious even in death.

"What about his body?" Sherlock dared, part of him not wanting to hear the rest.

"It has disappeared. Disappeared from the morgue."


	2. Chapter 2

Deceptions

Chapter Two

"I've brought you some sandwiches."

John Watson looked up with a start, slightly disorientated by Mrs Hudson's sudden appearance at the door. He had been miles away. Lost in his turmoil. Words proved a struggle, as if he had temporarily lost the ability to speak. "Thank you," he managed hoarsely, "but I'm not hungry."

Ignoring him, Mrs Hudson busied herself with the table beside his chair, tactfully moving aside a pile of newspapers headlining Sherlock's suicide, to make room for the plate. He noticed that she was still wearing the black skirt and blouse she had worn at the funeral. "We can't have you starving yourself."

John forced a smile, knowing that he'd be wasting his time trying to dissuade her. He knew she meant well. "Thanks."

She hesitated, sighing gently as she folded her arms and glanced sadly around the room. "All his things. Whatever will we do with all his things?"

John fleetingly closed his eyes.

"His brother might come for them, I suppose."

"No," John rushed sharply, quickly reviving.

Mrs Hudson looked down at him in surprise and he had no choice but to meet her curious stare.

He knew he had no claim on Sherlock's possessions. He had only known him eighteen months. Where as his brother had known him all his life.

"I mean…not yet," he amended awkwardly. "_Not yet_." His latter words were little more than a whispered plea, desperate murmurings beneath his breath.

Mrs Hudson reached down to affectionately squeeze his shoulder and he relished the gesture, despite himself. He already looked upon her as a mother figure. And though he had never admitted it, he felt Sherlock had too.

"I understand, dear," she tried to soothe. "I miss him too. This place is too quiet without him."

He found himself reaching up to squeeze her hand in return. "Thanks for the sandwiches."

"That's alright, dear."

Silence stretched between them and when it started to feel uncomfortable Mrs Hudson glanced towards the kitchen, suppressing a shudder. "I won't miss all the body parts though."

John managed a chuckle though it was a heartbeat away from a sob. "Me neither."

She gave him a sympathetic smile and diplomatically left him alone.

He waited for her footsteps to die away and then slumped forward in his chair, dragging his fingers through his hair. When he finally summoned the energy to lift his head again his eyes were sparkling with unshed tears.

He couldn't believe they had buried Sherlock today. Couldn't believe that his body had been inside that coffin. Cold. Dead. That brilliant mind of his suddenly…

John swallowed uncomfortably, his throat felt dry and raw, as if he had swallowed glass.

That brilliant mind…suddenly stopped…terminated…gutted like a candle flame victim to a gust of wind.

So long ago it seemed now, but what had Sherlock snapped in a fit of frustration, way back when they had first met? That his mind was his hard-drive?

God, how he wished he had the power to switch it back on, wished it could be that easy. Just press a switch and bring him back.

_Sherlock, come back. Stop this. Stop. This. Now._

His anger suddenly flared.

How could Sherlock do this? _Kill himself?_ Never, in a million years would he have believed he would end his own life. He would have seen it as weak, beneath him, _surely_?

And as for that bullshit about being a fake?

John stood up vehemently, shakily, clenching his fists so tightly that his nails dug painfully into his palms. An ex-soldier maybe, but he wasn't a naturally violent man, that was why he had chosen the doctor's path, yet the desire to lash out, to smash one of those condemning faces, to let loose some of this pent up emotion that was building inside him like a time bomb…

A fake? Never! He had seen with his own eyes. Heard with his own ears. Experienced, first hand, day after day, that incredible mind at work. Endured the extremities of that bizarre yet compelling personality. There was no way that could possibly be faked!

His rage dropped like a stone, his shoulders sagging in bewilderment.

So why? Why had Sherlock lied to him?

A sob finally escaped him.

"Why, Sherlock?" he choked to the empty, silent room. "Why?"


	3. Chapter 3

Deceptions

Chapter Three

Turning the key in the lock, Molly Hooper knew he was gone even before she had stepped into her flat. It wasn't just because he had told her he would be gone by the time she returned from his funeral, but she could feel his absence like some uncanny sixth sense was coming into play, a heightened awareness only he could trigger.

Slowly unbuttoning her coat, she stared mournfully across at the sofa that had been Sherlock Holmes' makeshift bed for the past week. She had initially offered him _her_ bed, making the usual fool of herself as she had blurted that she didn't mean with her in it, of course, and that _she_ could sleep on the sofa. But when Sherlock had insisted that the sofa would be quite adequate, it was without his usual derision, and was almost tender. Their relationship had shifted massively since the planning and completion of his fake suicide.

A ghost of a smile shivered across her lips but she quickly admonished herself, thinking about John.

He had looked so broken at the funeral. Fighting so desperately to keep it together. She had barely been able to meet his eyes. She felt so guilty, so culpable. Had longed to tell him that Sherlock wasn't really dead. That it wasn't his body being lowered into the ground.

"Take care of him for me, Molly," Sherlock had said, the closest to pleading she had ever heard him. "Be a friend to him."

Remembering his poignant words made her think back, over the past week. The most difficult, yet the most cherished week of her life. She had never expected Sherlock to ask her for refuge, but time had been short, he had been thinking on his feet, and had little time to plan anything but his elaborate suicide. Of course she had said yes. A little too quickly, if truth be told.

But romantic notions aside, she had kind of known what to expect. She wasn't totally naïve. She knew what Sherlock was like. And she hadn't been far off her assumptions.

He barely talked to her the whole week. He was lost, deep, in his thoughts. Brooding, so intensely and so darkly, that it almost frightened her. And yet it hadn't been anything personal towards her. She knew that. There had been something about his manner that hadn't excluded her, it had just asked for her understanding. To give him space.

She understood Sherlock more than he realised.

So she brought him mugs of tea, and regular meals, what little he ate of them, and for the most part, kept to her bedroom, so as not to disturb him.

At one stage, for a frustratingly brief interlude, he did rouse from his deliberations, asking her to buy him some cigarettes. She had hesitated, remembering his ongoing battle with the nicotine patches, thinking of what John might say, but Sherlock had implored her so endearingly with those beautiful insightful eyes that she had finally relented.

She sniffed the air as she made her way to the bedroom to rid herself of her morbid black funeral attire. The flat still smelt slightly of his cigarettes. Normally, she would hate the fact, but it reminded her of Sherlock, his lingering presence. Not quite gone yet.

He had sent her out to acquire other things too. A swish, bang up to date mobile phone that he said Mycroft would reimburse her for, and clothes and a wig that he could use as a disguise. The only snatch of humour he had expressed during the whole week was to remind her to buy a wig for a large head.

* * *

><p>After she had showered, changed, and made herself a much needed mug of hot chocolate, she curled up on the sofa, snuggling back into the plump cushions for comfort. With a little stirring of butterflies, and a larger rush of sadness, she thought back to what had happened last night. The last night he had spent at the flat with her.<p>

It had been about three in the morning and she had desperately needed a glass of water. Though she wouldn't admit it to Sherlock, the daily build up of cigarette smoke was starting to give her itchy eyes and a dry throat. As she had returned to her bedroom, glass in hand, she had realised that Sherlock was not asleep. In fact, he had been slumped forward with his head in his hands.

For a few long moments she had simply stood like a statue, compelled to watch him, unable to turn away. His heart-wrenching silhouette, highlighted by the yellow glow of the lamplight outside the window.

But little escaped Sherlock Holmes, and he had known she was there, turning his dishevelled head of Byronic hair to peer up at her, his eyes glistening in the darkness.

"Molly," he whispered. "What am I going to do?"

His words had taken her aback. Not just because of their content, or the fact that he was asking _her_, but the defeat lacing through them so strongly. This wasn't the Sherlock she was so familiar with. The Sherlock who was never in any doubt. Who was always one step ahead.

"What follows the fall?" he murmured cryptically, as if it were a riddle that needed solving.

Their eyes locked and she had smiled with uncertainty. "You get up again?"

He looked away and she wavered between staying and going. Sherlock had never been one for company. She was just about to do the latter when he spoke again.

"Molly, can I ask you a question?"

Surprising herself, she had padded across to the sofa in her bare feet, and tentatively sat down beside him, her glass cradled in her hands, resting on her knee. He hadn't seemed to mind her intrusion.

"Yes, of course," she had returned quietly, hoping he couldn't hear the pounding of her heart.

He didn't answer her immediately and time suddenly seemed tangible in the half-light around them. As if it were an actual presence, and like Molly was also waiting with baited breath.

"What does it feel like?"

She frowned her puzzlement. "What does _what_ feel like?"

"Grief," he asked thickly.

That word hit her hard.

She had told him about her father dying. How Sherlock reminded her of him. The way he possessed the same sadness in his eyes when he thought no one was looking. She believed it had been the catalyst for Sherlock to confide in her, to ask for her help.

"You're thinking about John, aren't you?" she guessed, and he looked at her sharply, in surprise, as if he might have underestimated her.

"Yes," he confessed.

She bit her lip. "It's…"

She thought of her father. How much she had loved him. The pain of seeing him slowly deteriorate, become a hollow shell of the strong vivacious man he had once been.

"Tell me, Molly," he begged in that silky deep baritone that always turned her insides to mush. "Please. I need to know."

She found herself blinking back tears. For her father. For John. For herself. But most of all, for Sherlock. Because she realised, for the first time in his life, he was floundering. He had begun to care and he didn't know how to handle the aftermath.

"In the beginning you can't believe it's real," she started softly. "It's like…like you're caught up in a dream…the world becomes a blur and sometimes…"

Her emotions snagged in her throat.

"…Sometimes you have to blink really hard just to bring the world back into focus."

He seemed so still beside her, almost as if he wasn't there at all.

"And then, wham, it suddenly hits you. That it's not a dream. That it is real. That they're not coming back and you're never going to see them again. Never going to see them smile, or hear their familiar voice, or feel the warmth of them close to you." She swallowed. "You realise that they're gone. Gone forever. And it hurts so much."

It was only when a tear splashed into her glass of water that she realised she was crying. When Sherlock reached down and gently eased the glass from her hand, leaning forward to place it on the coffee table, she looked at him in astonishment.

"I'm sorry. I've made you cry."

She shook her head adamantly. "It's ok. It's been a bit of an emotional week." She quickly wiped the dampness from her face. "Mum kept everything of dad's, you know. All of his clothes are still in the wardrobe. You can still smell him on them." She forced a shaky smile. "And his golf clubs are still in the corner beside the front door. He loved his golf, dad did."

She felt her heart race as her anger rose. It was always the same when she thought about her grieving mother, made a widow far too soon. It was a new, more recent facet of her grief.

She blinked back a fresh haze of tears. "And after the pain comes the anger."

"Anger?"

"Anger that he was taken. Anger at a so called God. Anger that we didn't deserve what happened."

It was this _anger_ that made her brave all of a sudden and she quickly looked at Sherlock, _really_ looked at him, desperately searching the sharp lines and contours of his shadowed face. "This isn't forever, is it? You're not going to be dead forever?"

When he didn't answer she shook her head in a panic. "But you can't. You've got to come back eventually. What about John?"

That was when he had said those fateful words :

"Take care of him for me, Molly. Be a friend to him."

And the only way she could translate it, was that he _wasn't_ coming back.


	4. Chapter 4

Deceptions

Chapter 4

Sherlock's certainty wavered for all of two seconds. "He was dead, I saw him die. Even if he used a blank it would have killed him at such a close range."

Mycroft nodded curtly. "Oh, there is no doubting it. I saw him in the morgue with my own eyes. Stiff as a board." He smiled thinly. "Do not worry. There was only one fake suicide up on that rooftop."

Sherlock was not appeased. "The body was thoroughly examined?"

"We are always thorough."

Sherlock balked, rolling his eyes. "I've heard that one before."

Mycroft ignored him. "No prosthetics. No impostor. The real Jim Moriarty."

Sherlock glanced away, his mind whirring. Contrary to what he had led Moriarty to believe, Sherlock had known all along that there had been no key code. There would never be a _single _key code. It would be as asinine as it would be dangerous. He was actually surprised that Mycroft had fallen for such a transparent ploy, the sort of shenanigan that was more fitting to a Bond movie, though it had been satisfying to see his brother squirm when he learnt the truth.

He had even deduced the installed camera at Baker Street long before he had gone through the actual motions of discovering it. A book slightly out of place, that John would never have read and Mrs Hudson's dusting would never have reached. He had resisted the impulse to confirm for sure so that he could maintain the pretence, discussing the key code with John, who was ignorant of the truth, for the benefit of its _viewer_.

The real key was to have Moriarty believing he, the _boffin_ Sherlock Holmes, was _normal_. One of the _normal people_. He _wanted_ to disappoint him. Had to have him believing he had won. Because by winning, the game was over, terminated, and it was always about the game with Moriarty. An insane mind was always the most complex to infiltrate, until you found their weak spot, knew exactly what made them tick.

"So…if he is dead," Sherlock meditated. "Who took the body?"

"We are working on it."

Sherlock listened with half an ear, lured back into his deliberations again. "And moreover, why?" he murmured to himself.

Drawing his hands up to his face, he positioned them into a loose prayer position, lightly resting his fingertips against his lips as his thoughts were swept back into the roller coaster depths of his consciousness. Places, faces, sounds and ideas battled for precedence, delighting him with their eagerness to decipher, to unravel, to solve.

But that fractional part of him still hovering in the real world soon became irritably conscious of his brother watching him.

"This must be so difficult for you," Mycroft suddenly broke into the silence, though there was no sympathy in his tone.

"What?" he snapped back impatiently, like a child dragged away from his favourite toy.

"No more charging into battle, making your deductions, weeding out the truths from the lies." His brother smirked. "No more irritating the populous with that charming disposition."

"And your point is?"

"You _know _what my point is, and it is already starting to eat you up inside."

A flicker of pity finally had the decency to grace Mycroft's face. "You are _dead_, Sherlock. _Officially dead_. You can do nothing. You can question no one. The leg work you seem to thrive upon can be no more. Your little _adventures _with John, cavorting around London, solving crimes like Batman and Robin. It's over." He shrugged, appearing mildly perturbed, as if he had said too much, gone too far. "Though I guess it finally shows me that you are actually human. You thought of others before yourself for the first time in your life."

"And your point _is_?" Sherlock repeated, his words almost a snarl, hating it when his brother was right.

"It is what feeds you. Sustains you. The work. Without it…" Mycroft smiled grimly. "Without it, you are as good as dead."

Though they touched a nerve, Sherlock knew he couldn't allow Mycroft's words to drag him down. That was a path he was not yet ready to tread. Yes, he had considered his…friends…before the consequences. Focused on the short term problem before the long. He had fought against his natural instincts, refined after decades of nurturing, and put people first.

He knew that in hindsight he would do exactly the same again, though the knowledge, the realisation, felt alien to him. He didn't know how to begin to assimilate it. So he didn't try, burying it deep, determined that sentiment wouldn't continue to get the better of Sherlock Holmes. It had been a minor blip in his hard-drive. Necessary, but one he had no intension of repeating again.

_Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side, _he reminded himself, like some inner mantra. _The losing side._

He narrowed his eyes and ran them over his brother calculatingly, his mind going to work again.

"Give me his phone," he finally said.

"What?"

"Moriarty's phone."

Mycroft stared across at him in shock.

"You have it in your pocket," Sherlock persisted, secretly revelling in his brother's disbelief.

He didn't have the patience to wait for him to deny it. "When your phone rang your hand hesitated in your pocket, your motion wasn't as fluid as it should have been. You were considering two phones, feeling for the one you are more familiar with. If I were being less observant of your actions, which is highly unlikely but I digress anyway, the simple fact that there are two discreet protrusions in your pocket would be clarification enough."

"What makes you think it is Moriarty's phone," Mycroft stumbled. "It could be anyone's. Yours for example."

"Molly has mine. Back at the lab. And who else's would you bring with you under the circumstances?" Sherlock smirked his touché, reaching out his hand. "The phone, please."

As Mycroft fumbled in his pocket he shook his head. "You will be wasting your time. It tells us nothing. It is new, barely used, little more than a prop contracted under Moriarty's fictitious name of Richard Brooke. Two contacts, you and that journalist Kitty Riley, obviously to back up the Brooke character. Two tracks uploaded: Staying Alive by the Bee Gees, and Gioachino Rossini's The Thieving Magpie." Mycroft raised an eyebrow. "Quite a disparity of choice, I must say." He stretched out his arm towards Sherlock. "After the episode with Irene Adler's phone we even had it x-rayed.

"Nothing," he added sourly as he slapped the phone into Sherlock's demanding hand.

Sherlock drew it towards him possessively. He felt a rush of excitement as he began to rotate it between his long fingers experimentally.

It was Mycroft's turn to roll his eyes. "By God, look at you. Always so eager to _play_. Have you listened to anything I have said?"

"I try not to."

Mycroft sighed. "He is dead. What use can his phone possibly be to you now?"

Sherlock gave his brother a sharp questioning look. Mycroft was many things, but stupid was not one of them. "You know exactly what it can do. It can _lead me _to whoever took his body from the morgue."

Mycroft stood up edgily. "You are good, Sherlock, but not _that_ good." He started to cross the room but turned upon reaching the door. "When I return it will be with your new identity. Passport. Documents. A new bank account."

Sherlock didn't look up, still absorbed in the phone.

"I also strongly advise you to grow a beard."

This did rouse Sherlock's interest, his eyes widening in mischief, crinkling his brow. "Before you return?"

With a click of his tongue, Mycroft snatched up his umbrella and exited the room.

"You can stay a few days," he threw back from the hallway, "but that is all. Then you need to disappear. Bid a final farewell to Sherlock Holmes. _Give up the ghost_."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

_The deafening sound of bombing. The ominous whistle of shells. The hot oppressive air choking him, tasting of dust and metal and destruction. _

_Chaos. Confusion. Shouts and screams. A blur of camouflage greens. Soldiers. Closing in around him. Dragging him onto a stretcher. An agonising flare of fire in his shoulder. Scorching pain that makes his eyes burn and the world spin nauseatingly._

_A boom of an explosion and the scene abruptly changes. He is outside St Barts, staggering towards the broken body of his friend. Sherlock's head is horrifically haloed by a widening pool of deep crimson blood. He can almost smell its coppery tang. It fills him with panic._

_It fills him with dread._

_Sherlock's turn to be lifted onto a stretcher now. His body unresponsive, lifeless. Eyes vacant, face blank, marble-white like a statue. Can it really be the same man? The brilliant, dynamic, Sherlock Holmes? _

_No, it can't…it can't be…_

_People holding him back. Arms and hands stretching out like tethers, stopping him from reaching his friend. He tries to fight his way through them but they are strong, so very strong, and he feels so weak, like he is wading through treacle, his legs shaky with shock and despair._

"_I'm a doctor…let me come through," he pleads, trying in vain to pass between them. "Let me come through…please…" _

_But the scene quickly melts away again, like a watercolour painting left out in the rain, and he finds himself back in Afghanistan. _

_Only Sherlock is here with him, taking his place, being dragged onto a military stretcher, his infamous black coat so out of place, so inimitable, against the regimented regalia of camouflage greens. _

_The soldiers swarm him like insects, blocking John's path, just like the people at St Barts. They close in tightly together, forming a wall between John and Sherlock, the manoeuvre so spine-chillingly swift and fluid that it is almost as if they are one entity, one collective._

"_Let me come through…please!" John begs, frantically trying to prise their bodies apart, to break their resistance. "He's my friend…my friend…"_

_When they remain unresponsive, anger sparks through his veins like electricity. He starts to pound down upon their backs, each strike more determined, more brutal than the last. But every burst of violence only highlights the futility of his actions. The soldiers are as strong as steel, as impenetrable as stone. _

_As exhaustion finally overpowers him, his legs buckle, his knees slamming hard into the dry dusty ground. He reaches out desperately, knowing that he is too late, that this is the end. _

"_SHERLOCK!"_

* * *

><p>John woke with a gasp, struggling for breath, his heart racing wildly. Ripping the blankets from his sweat-drenched body, he tumbled from the bed, stumbling out into the darkness.<p>

"_Christ…"_

Night swept imperiously around him as he stood, shaking, in the centre of the room. Dragging trembling fingers through his hair, he took several long deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself. As the last remnants of the dream slowly ebbed away, he finally realised where he was, what had happened, what_ was_ happening.

"Sherlock?" he choked into the night, but his only reply was a mocking silence that cut like glass; merciless razor-sharp cuts to his soul. His shoulders heaved as he tried to get a grip on himself, tried to blink the world back into focus.

He didn't know how much more of this he could take. On top of everything that had happened, Sherlock had now become a part of his nightmares. The man had succeeded in both exorcising and resurrecting his demons, yet this time they felt a thousand times worse, a thousand times more debilitating.

His friend…his best friend…_dead?_

"No…please god, no…don't let it be real…"

He knew what was coming and fought an internal battle to stop the horrific onslaught of images, scrunching his eyes shut, trying to shake them from his mind. But they were ingrained on his psyche now, had evolved a cruel impervious life of their own. Like physical blows, they rained down upon him, striking at his very core.

_Sherlock standing up on the rooftop… _

_Taking that terrible fatal step… _

_Plummeting… _

_Plummeting…_

_Down…down…down…_

"No!"

Mirroring the anguish of his dream self, John collapsed to his knees again, burying his face in his hands, surrendering to his emotions for the first time since Sherlock's death.

* * *

><p>AUTHOR's NOTE...sorry this is so very short but I'm in the process of moving house, very busy with packing. I have loads I want to write but frustratingly, so little time to do it. Please be patient with me. xx<p> 


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